In blogland

[gwyn]

I have been thinking about this for a long time, pondering how pretentious it is or how silly or embarassing, but I decided to bring it up to my writing group today and since we were short a lot of people, we didn't get too deep -- so one person suggested I bring it up here. I don't know much about the world of blogs. I used to participate in a group blog (and still have posting privileges there, but I have drifted away from a lot of those folks, so I only visit occasionally), but if it isn't LJ, I don't know much about it. I have on occasion read a few that I like, but I don't know much about how they work, how those people started, etc., and they're not really people I can ask. And I stay as far away from any of the political/commentary type blogs as I can.

But I've thought more and more lately of creating a blog outside of LJ, which for me is a very fannish place and not always my favorite interface, for collecting and posting creative nonfiction about my twin sister, her illness, and the aftermath of losing a twin. I have this really bad tendency, which is that if I don't have a concrete goal in mind, I won't write. Whether it's sending out a story to a publication (which I hardly ever do anymore, since I'm convinced no one would buy one of my stories again), or posting reviews, or even just posting fanfic, unless I have someplace specific to take it, I won't bother writing it. And though I've always been more into fiction than nonfiction, creative nonfiction has been the thing that I keep getting published for, even though I don't understand why. I think most of it is crap, but people seem to like it enough to publish it. So, that leads me to think that maybe I should try putting the things down on paper that I've been grappling with for so long; I've had ideas and snippets of stuff rolling around in my head for a long time, but never written them down. If it turns out to be anything decent or cohesive, it might also be a way for me to compile something like a manuscript.

Doing searches on how to start a blog, though, and the types of places where one can start one has been an exercise in frustration. It's hard to get pinpointed info. I don't know what kind of services outside LJ exist, and how to do it. Hell, I've never even DLed the client here for posting; I just use the web update option on LJ, this is how lame technologically I am. (And I should add, I don't expect anyone to read it; it's not about that, for me, right now.)

Anyone on my flist have any experience with a non-LJ blog type thing, especially in a place with hosting rather than on your own space? Or just general better knowledge of the Intarwebs than me? Willing to tell me how you got started, and give me any advice? You can e-mail me at gwyn_r at livejournal dot com, and I would be grateful to hear about your experience and pick your brain (is that not the most gruesome expression ever?). Even if you just want to tell me it's a dumb idea, I'd still be glad to hear what you have to say.

Comments

[umbo.livejournal.com]

What would you be looking for in a blog that you wouldn't get on LJ? I'm not asking that fascetiously; I'm honestly curious. If you feel like you can't write about your sister on this LJ, you could always start another one with a different user name.

Now, granted, a lot of my reaction is coming from the POV that I get annoyed when friends I've met on LJ have separate blogs, because that means if I want to read the blogs, I have to book mark them and check them to see if there are new posts, while if they're on LJ I just have them on my friends page.

As far as technology goes, I know there is blogger technology through blogspot.com. But most of the people I know who used to have blogs have switched to LJ, both for ease of use and for the community aspect. I'm sure you can find lots of info with a google search on blogging software; you can probably find info as well at Six Apart's website (the company that bought LJ), as I think their software, Moveable Type, is pretty big in the non-LJ blogging world. Also, you might find some info over at wilwheaton.net, maybe, or makinglight.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

For me, it's a couple things about LJ. One is that I hate, hate, hate the cut tag culture. It's most prevalent in fandom, I admit, but I just really would dread it if some friend, out of obligation, friended an LJ and then got this horrifically long post and then I had to hear griping about my long noncut posts. It would piss me off extraordinarily; I want a place where I can feel like I can do what I want without having to kowtow to the expectations of "friends" just because they friended me. And let's face it, you would get that no matter what you did.

And I'd like to actually avoid that whole friending thing. I don't expect anyone to read this, it will be depressing and probably stupid, and so I would feel pressure knowing that people might friend it because they'd read my fic, or they knew me personally... I just don't know how much I want to feel like I have to do something others expect. This might be a clean slate, in a way, disconnected from fandom.

I've had a lot of issues with the way LJ handles things, especially how hard it is to tweak text. I find most of their text too small to read easily, but I can never figure out how to modify things unless someone gives me incredibly explicit instructions. If i can find easier templates, that might make me a bit happier, I don't know. I can't even post photos here, I am that bad with things. I figured it out once, but have never been able to get it right again.

I'm glad there are tags now, here, but... for me it's this fannish place largely, and in a way I'd want to have a separate space where I could have a different mindset. I know that makes no sense whatsoever, but I can't articulate it well... It may well be, though, that I stay here, I'm going to start looking at all the places folks have mentioned and see what I find out.

[merkuria-lyn.livejournal.com]

LJ, which for me is a very fannish place and not always my favorite interface

I know what you mean. I started a blog for my crafts, photography, and knitting/spinning interests a while back because I felt that LJ was the wrong place for that. My blog is with 'blogspot' (http://www.blogger.com), and I'm really happy with them. That it doesn't have a 'reply' function for comments, is probably my biggest complaint, but you can upload photos directly and you can modify your template to personalise it.

Blogspot is a very different place to LJ, or at least it feels like it is - less fannish, less opinionated, more relaxed... But maybe that is just my experience with it.

I know there are other services, but blogspot is the only one of the bigger blogging services that I know of that is free and which does not require an own space.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to blogging, but if you need more help, let me know and I'll try! :)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this -- a lot of people have mentioned blogger to me, and the free aspect really does appeal when I'm already spending a lot of money to host my vids, and pay for LJ and extra pics. I just want someplace where I can feel like it's really different, and it sounds like that is what you have experienced there. I may just take you up on your offer of help!

[aukestrel.livejournal.com]

I've been on Blogger for about four years and only came to LJ under extreme lemminglike duress because I was losing touch with so many friends who thought that I had an LJ or would at least check theirs. *g*

With that said, I really like Blogger, and I've hosted several blogs on blogspot, which is their free hosting service. If I were you I'd go poke at it, give it a try, cause it is free. The interface is also much easier to edit than LJ's because it's not so heavily coded - it's more of a PHP type thing where your template relies on a few Blogger-specific commands to tell it where to display things on the page.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Would you beleive I don't even know what PHP is? But as long as it's easy, I'm happy -- one of the things I find enormously frustrating about LJ is that the simpler tweaks like setting your type to a larger font is next to impossible to figure out for someone like me, whose html skills are so basic as to be negligible. I would never even want to try to figure out how on earth to customize my layout the way many of my friends have. If you don't have someone you can enlist with great skills, you're stuck.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Looks like the advice fairies have beat me to the punch yet again, but I'll try to add something of worth: I'd read the blog if you got it going. But, as it's been pointed out, it can be hard to remember to check something that isn't on my flist every day, so maybe you could post update alerts here and give people a kick in the pants to go over to your other blog. I know other people who do this, so it works.

And I think Google bought Movable Type or Blogger or somebody, so you know the technology is in good hands.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd necessarily want people to know what I do-- I mean, I doubt I'd update or announce. For one thing, I want this to be separate from my fannish stuff, and whenever I announce things here for fanfic, it's depressing and silent usually, and so the last thing I want is for people to feel obligated to read something more personal and then the resounding silence. I don't want it to be about me, either -- like, oh, check me out, I wrote something. I may let people know about it, but I don't think I want to make this LJ a place to connect to something so different and personal.

And to be honest, I don't think many people care. They're either here for the fic updates, or they're here for reviews or something. Most of my RL friends don't even care about my RL stuff, so the last thing I want is to set myself up for being ignored in yet another way. The people who care will care, and that will be fine.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

The people who care will care, and that will be fine.

Good point. At least let me know if you get something going, so I can bookmark it.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I'll echo the advice, blogger.com is by far the easiest non-lj interface out there. I have several -- one is political, one is more meta, and one more personal. The personal one I host on my own website at wordsmiths.net. The other two are blogspot accounts.

The interfacing and commenting has come long way sinc eI first had one (i.e. you still can't thread comments but it does notify you if someone posts a comment.) The editing interface is easy, and if you don't like the templates offered (and there are a lot) they aren't that hard to customize.

I'd be happy to back door you into one of my blogspot accounts if you want to play before signing up.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Wow, i had no idea you were such a bloggin' fool! I am definitely going to check it all out, since so many people have mentioned them, and a couple people wrote with some other places... I will see which one fits best.

[crickwooder.livejournal.com]

Also, in the days before blogs were ubiquitous, there were online journals, at places such as Diaryland (http://www.diaryland.com) or

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Also, in the days before blogs were ubiquitous, there were online journals, at places such as <a href="http://www.diaryland.com">Diaryland</a> or <a href="http://"www.diary-x.com">Diary-X</a>. I still keep an OLJ (I refuse to use the word "blog") over at Diaryland, and they are pretty easy to set up and customize. You can do a blog-style set up or a one entry per page setup, you can include comments if you'd like, or you can skip contact info altogether.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

a couple people have mentioned Diaryland to me, as well... I never have liked the word blog, either. I've had to get used to it at work, but it's like Spuffy -- I use it because everyone else in my corner of the world does, but that doesn't mean I like it (and it's the only conflation I've ever used, even though it chokes me).

[minim_calibre]

Blogger is easy and free, which is why my non-fannish and exceedingly boring blog is over there. I know a lot of the baby blogger set moved off of it and over to Typepad, which has more features and is supposedly more stable, but I wasn't about to use a paid service for blogging about my efforts to be frugal. *g*

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I think that payment thing is a bigger deal for me than I'd thought about at first -- I already pay for this LJ and user pics, and then a lot more money for a place to host my vids, and I think the idea of continuing to pay for things that don't give me anything back but space is getting harder and harder to do. A part of me thinks maybe going back to unpaid LJ would be good, but it's hard to let go of once you have it. I think I'm in a very bad mood lately though about the way people take and take from you and never even have the decency to say thanks for providing us with fic or vids or whatever. The selfishnes of fandom is seriously giving me the blues lately, and I know that's one other reason I want to stop doing so much fannish crap waste of time stuff and concentrate on something worthier. If I find I like it, and get the hang of it, paying for something might turn out to be okay.